Kayty,
It just dawned on me that I should ask you another question. What should I be working on to do beginner novice eventing for the dressage portion? It seems simple, and I gather that I should be working on transitions, keeping the gaits the same pace, making sure to bend through corners, and being as seamless as possible. Is there anything else I should try? No dressage instructors in my area...my coach is h/j but knows a bit about dressage.

Kayty,
Thanks for your reply! I have an instructor but she's more hunter/jumper than dressage. We practice shoulder ins and outs a lot in lessons, sometimes do circles, that stuff, but Casper doesn't even know what a should in is! Okay, so let's make sure I'm right about this:
On a 20 meter circle, ask him to leg-yield to the outside and with my inside leg, "push" him into my outside rein for just a few good steps until he starts to build strength and understand the concept. What should my inside rein be doing? And my outside leg would, on a horse who understood lateral work, act as a regulator right? If he started moving too much to the sideways, the outside leg would keep him in between my legs type of thing?

I'e only really read about dressage and have about 0 experience with it.

In my starting eventing thread, some of the eventers there recommended talking to you about dressage. I'll just be doing beginner novice, but my horse really likes to cut corners and isn't responsive when I ask him to move laterally. What are some exercises I can do to help supple him and get him to respond better to my leg - he's great at moving forward, just not sideways.

Interested in your opinion of the McLean's, since you 'liked' my post?

Read heaps of Andrew's philosophy & thought I'd done my research well enough when I decided it was the place to send my green horse. After only a week i visited him... & took him home amid tears! The man(Warwick) accused me of lying that the horse had any prior training at all(I had been up to taking him out & about on trail rides when I got pregnant). At the paddock, he ran to the far side & stood shaking. Took me a while to get near him(he had always come when called!). He had a halter left on him that had rubbed his nose raw, was headshy and had sores in the corners of his mouth from a bit(they'd assured me they wouldn't use one because I hadn't started him that way). He was reactive on the ground, but almost 'mechanical' to ride... Years later he's still got a few 'hangups' from the experience!